Huarez to Lima

5 June 05 Continued...

Nearly speared a man in the head last night with my room key as he molested me on my midnight walk home from a lovely dinner with my new friend Richard. Lucky bastard managed to swing out of my way just in a nick of time after he groped my ass.

What are men thinking with tactics like that? Is it a wonder there is such a fear of men? Do they really believe that this will successfully get them laid? Wish I had a super soaker filled with aji for idiots like this, lucky bastard got off easily with a biting slew of insults from me...sneaking suspicion he is single.

Twice today people have enthusiastically assured me that my Spanish is very good in response to my quick apologies about my poor abilities which gives me more confidence. I experienced a lovely moment today when our guide, who was speaking both in Spanish and English, described what we were seeing and I had to think about whether I had just understood it in English or in Spanish...its become just as easily understood. Man, its a beautiful thing! Still, I think people are just being polite to me.

Dinner with Richard was lovely and only enhanced when a young boy named Miguel approached us for a shoe shine. We declined but invited him to sit with us for a glass of coke. At ten years old he was already attempting to get us to spike his drink with the rum we were drinking. Sweet boy told me that I was his girlfriend from the United States.

Miguel also told us about his current living situation, very sad...The young one was already so street savvy. His family lived about five kilometres outside of Huarez but at eleven pm I assumed that he would be sleeping on the street in preparation for his early work day tomorrow.

We stuffed him full of Coca-Cola, Chinese food and large handfuls of the continuously replenished bag of caramelos I carry at all times for little ones I run into on the street.

Side track...My dreams here in Huarez have been unbelievably vivid and quite strange...dreams of painting the children entirely in bright vibrant colours specific to their personalities, dreams of my friends...not in their human form but rather taking on an animal form...perhaps it´s the altitude.

6 June 05

Today I am going to look at a whole bunch of cactus...The Puya Raymondi to be exact.

The Puya Raymondi is the largest member of the Bromeliads, or Pineapple family. It grows in a spiny rosette of long, sturdy, waxy leaves that reach about two meters in diameter. This Bromeliad is one of the world´s most ancient species of plant and is considered a living fossil.

It takes about one hundred years to grow to full size at which point it flowers producing one lone spike that grows to ten meters in height, covered with approximately 20,000 flowers (largest inflorescence in the world). The plant remains in flower for about three months at which point the plant dies.

For some reason I find this life cycle terribly romantic...

Along the road I see herds of wild horses, enormous snow capped peaks, grassy meadows and meandering rivers. We stop at a couple of natural mineral springs, las Aguas Gasificadas de Pumapampa, which I took a drink of (don´t they tell you to stay away from the water in South America?) and was surprised to discover that it was carbonated, and el Ojo de Agua de Pumashimi, which is this incredibly deep electric blue pool of water oddly placed in the middle of an otherwise non-descript meadow.

Then...I hiked a glacier. It´s name was Nevado Pastoruri. Cold caverns of blue dripping ice...the guide said that it was Superman´s house and I believe him. So many lovely patterns of colour and texture.

I hiked to the top of the glacier with this stunning Peruvian man, Marcos. 5,460 meters in height and we all felt it, difficulty breathing, popping ears, headaches, nausea and all well worth it as the view from the peak was breathtaking.

There were two gents at the peak with ice axes and a flag and Marcos and I proceeded to take a series of staged photographs using them as props.

Okay, off to catch an overnight bus to Lima after a bit of dinner....

7 June 05

Oy! Today I am recovering from yet another overnight bus ride back to Lima...try to sleep but you can´t...boarded it at 10pm and got to Lima at 4:45am, still dark, at which point I grabbed a taxi back to the refuge...showed up to the refuge at 5am and rang the bell to no avail...repeated this every half hour until, finally, Manuel awoke at 6:15am. I teased him for getting up late as normally he is waking the children at 5:30am!

So, while I waited in the dark in the heart of this barrio for an hour and a half with all of my most important documents and expensive items on my person, I thought..."what a perfect time to be mugged" and half expected it to happen...I just didn´t have the heart to be more persistent on the bell...

As it turned out I was lucky enough to be able to watch the sky turn light and listen to the community come alive as everything awoke...including the bread man on his bicycle honking his horn with a monstrous basket of rolls on the back of his bike and the fruit man announcing his daily specials into a tinny microphone and speaker system....this is one of my absolute favorite times of day.

Quick kisses to Manuel once he opened the door then directly to sleep for a few hours. Alana and I head to Puente Peidre to buy a few things...I leave in exactly one week from today and have so many thank you gifts to prepare for all of those that have made my experience here so extraordinary...

I am not ready to leave the children...the refuge...Peru...and find myself wondering how long it will be before I can return again. My gut says it will not be too far off and I find myself making excuses as to why it will be essential for my presence here at the refuge justifying why I have to come back soon.

Alana left the refuge this evening to continue on her traveling adventures...yet another special cake was made, so many lovely words were said and tears shed. This woman has a heart of gold and oozes love and compassion...very simply said, I will miss her presence tremendously.

We completed the evening with a huge session of music outside under the stars. I grabbed all of the various instruments that we have here at the refuge and gave them to the children. Those that didn´t have an instrument I handed various items for percussion...glass bottles and sticks etc. The rest danced their lovely hearts out.

Alana´s taxi was incredibly late, much to my greedy pleasure, and I told her it was fate...that she would now have to spend one final night here with us. I didn´t expect that she would make her bus in time and I have been waiting up expecting her return from the station...but I think that, unfortunately for all but her, she managed to make her bus.

Sigh...melancholy